


What Comes Next

by hollowsbest



Series: Life on the Midsummer Space Station [2]
Category: Midsummer Station, Original Work
Genre: Aftermath of Time Travel, Character Study, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28982847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollowsbest/pseuds/hollowsbest
Summary: A space station in the midst of chaos sends out a distress call to four very specific people.One of them tucks herself away in the aftermath.
Series: Life on the Midsummer Space Station [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099097





	What Comes Next

A lot happens after accepting the dual request for aid and job offer. Your ship partially explodes, you undoubtedly ruin any chance at friendship with the rest of the rescue squad, the station is more fucked than you thought. You think you’re valid for being a little snappy, seeing as your fucking ship exploded (partially) and the station had fucking _never-ending elevators_ in it.

The AI who called you in and was supposed to have the answers had absolutely _none_ , and still fucking doesn’t. There was something organic running about the station causing chaos, a horrible black mass of grasping hands that only seemed deterred via huge amounts of fire, and of course who can forget about the anomalous spaces you had to trek through.

At least there are _some_ survivors, you’re not sure what you would’ve done if there were none. (You still don’t want to think about the ones who _didn’t_.) None of command did. You don’t feel particularly great about being appointed head doctor thanks to everyone else who would’ve taken the position _dying_. But hey! At least the _pay_ is good _huh_ _**Follows**_. (You’re such an ass.)

At least you have some of an answer to why the station got massively fucked by spacial anomalies! Less of an answer for the mass of organic material, and why it happened in the first place. (None of it makes sense, a confusing series of events and impossibilities. How did the procedure become incomplete, when it was impossible _to_ incomplete it?)

You’ve retreated to your ship now, after dealing with the situation in command, the huge, hulking _secret_ in command. Your ship feels safer than any potential cabin you’d be given. You gave the wounded survivors one last look over before bailing, they can survive a night without your constant supervision.

You’d forgotten what’d happened to your ship. Your smoking, hunk of _junk_ ship. You’ve spent the last hour doing what you can for her, getting her back on her landing gear and bending what metal you can back into shape. She’s sturdy, she’s got that going for her. But she’s also a fucking rusted, beat-up, piece of shit _rust bucket_. That’s her name actually, Rust Bucket. You’d named her in a fit of rage a few years back, before that you hadn’t called her anything.

Yes, perhaps she’s served you well for eight years out here, but you’re not willing to let her rest _just_ yet. (You’ve also got no fucking clue how you’d get a new ship in the first place, you’re not exactly swimming in cash.) You’re not sure what you can do for her though, fixing a jump drive is outside your knowledge. You could probably fix everything else given enough time and resources (that you probably don’t have right now), but a _jump drive_? You need schooling for that, and years of it. Do something wrong and the next time you jumped you could be liquified.

...But who knows how expensive it’d be to get a replacement. Your only option might just be to learn to do it yourself. (It’s not like you haven’t taught yourself to fix the rest of this damned ship.) How hard could it be? You’ve got the whole galactic net of knowledge at your talons, there’s probably something somewhere that’ll teach you how to fix an exploded jump drive. (And hopefully everything else damaged by an exploding jump drive. You’re still not sure how you managed to crashland without a scratch on you, and in all honesty pretty minimal damage overall.)

Sure, the paint’s a bit scuffed and you had to bend the landing gear under the cockpit back into a usable state (your arms _ache_ after that, you need to note down to never crashland with your landing gear out again), but outwardly? Things don’t look too bad; it’s the internals that’re the problem, fiddly bastards that they are. You don’t know how much of the engine’s recoverable, life support is hanging on by a thread, the artificial gravity is shot, only thing that seems to actually be working are all the _fucking_ warning lights about _everything_.

You don’t want to even _deal_ with it right now, let alone think about it. You don’t want to think about much of anything right now. (Especially not about what you’ve learned.) But your brain has never been one to listen to you. You keep turning it over and over and over in your head, the realisation terrifying and a relief all at once. You’re fearful of what comes next, for you, for your people (you shouldn’t).

Something in the next fifty years tears a station to shreds, a _Chireem_ station. Full of fortifications and weaponry. Torn open to the vacuum of space. Full of people, now dead- Or will be. Something within the next five-hundred years drives Chireem from their occupied territory, to the point there’s nothing recognisable and a galactic _war_ happens. (You won’t live long enough to see this, you’re not sure if you’re relieved.)

Some of them deserve their coming deaths, for the constant wars, for the death, for the enslavement of others. But you know there’s chireem who don’t, who hate the atrocities committed, who just can’t _leave_. You don’t know what exactly happens, but whatever it is, you know it won’t be without bloodshed. (You hate not knowing, but you don’t want to try looking for answers. You have enough to worry about in the here and now.)

It’s like you’re a hatchling again, being regaled with tales of war and the glory of bringing pain and suffering. All you can do after witnessing it, is to curl up in your bunk and cry.

You’re not sure for whom.


End file.
